st have another person; it is impossible to do it alone.
Margaret,--no! Peggy can better do this! Peggy, come, and you shall be
Spain, the tyrant."

Peggy looked as if she would much rather be aspiring Cuba, but she came
forward obediently, and was bidden to put herself in an attitude of
insolent defiance. Peggy scowled and doubled up her fists, thinking of a
picture of a prizefighter that she had once seen.

"_Ahi!_" cried Rita, springing upon her. "Not thus! you have the air of
a cross child. Thus, do you see? Fold the arms upon the chest, abase the
head, bring the eyebrows down till you have to look through them! So!
that is better! Now gnaw your under lip, and draw in your breath with a
hiss, thus!" and Rita herself uttered a hiss so malignant that poor
Peggy started back in affright. "But be still!" cried Rita, "you are now
perfect. You are an object--is she not, Marguerite?--to turn cold the
blood." Margaret did not commit herself, being wholly occupied in
keeping back the smiles that Peggy's aspect called forth. She certainly
was an object, poor dear child, but Rita was so absorbed in her play
that she saw nothing absurd even in a tyrant scowling through flaxen
eyebrows with a pair of helpless, frightened blue eyes. She now drew
back, knelt, flung up her arms, and raised her eyes to heaven. Her lips
moved; she was praying for the success of her cause. Rising, she came
forward, and with noble earnestness demanded her freedom. The tyrant was
bidden to look about on the ruin and desolation that he had wrought; he
was implored by all that was holy, all that was just and noble, to
withdraw from the land where he had long ceased to have any real right
of ownership. Peggy, in obedience to whispered orders, shook her head
with stubborn violence, and stamped her foot. Cuba then, drawing herself
to her full height, threw down her gage of defiance (a tiny
pearl-covered glove) and declared war to extermination. The banner of
freedom (the fan) was unfurled and waved on high, the national song was
chanted, and the war began. Spain, the tyrant, now had a hard time of
it. She was pounced upon from one side, then from another; she was
surrounded, hustled this way and that; the fan was fluttered wide in her
face, poked sharply between her ribs. A single straightforward blow from
her strong young arm would have laid the slender Cuba at her feet, but
she could strike no blow. She was only to hiss, and clutch the air in
impotent fur